Simple query not working

[eluser]mabright[/eluser]
I did that, both versions of the SQL string look fine and when I cut and paste the sql into my DB, I get results. It's real weird and driving me nuts.

When hard code or using variables both SQL strings look like below.
SELECT `region` FROM `my_region_table` WHERE UPPER(`country`) = 'US' AND UPPER(`description`) = 'GEORGIA'

However, the version that uses the variables doe not satisfy

Code:

if ($query->num_rows() > 0){...